Michelle and I got to check out the NW Quilting Expo today, which was cool! I had never been there before and it was great to get to see all the vendors’ booths and prize-winning quilts on display. I’m teaching a wool baby quilt class for Pendleton there bright and early (8:30 am! lots of coffee for sure!) on Saturday so I was happy to get a chance to visit for fun, too.

By the way – my class (#S300 in the booklet) still has 3 spots open out of 20, so if you happen to be interested you can register at the front desk there. This is the project (above), a very simple elongated coin quilt made from three Pendleton wools, and the class fees include a kit with all the fabrics in either pink or blue color families. I can’t believe I’ll be teaching 17 (possibly more!) students on Saturday and I am super looking forward to it. (If you’re not going to the Expo, I’m also teaching it again at the Woolen Mill Store on Saturday, October 1 from 1-3:30 pm, $40 includes all three fabrics in a kit.)

Back to the Expo… Michelle and I saw this amazing quilt (one of dozens, maybe hundreds on display) and both stopped in our tracks to love and admire it. I adored the kids’ book The Hundred Dresses and these beautiful rows of vintage-fabric-pieced dress blocks, each with tiny hand-stitched coat hangers, amazed me. Renee Newstrum (who I would love to meet!) designed, pieced and quilted it:

Oh, the little dresses!!!

We also stopped by the Pendleton booth and among many awesome things, they had a nice display of my books and my Winter Woolens Quilt (made with their wool, I bought everything for it at the Woolen Mill Store). So cool.

And the tempting pick-any-8 wool FQ sets were going fast.

I also saw Diane‘s marvelous book with the Clover Kanzashi kits

at the Fabric Depot booth. (She’ll be there Friday from 11-2 demoing the Kanzashi makers!)

Speaking of books, I was happy to see all three of Terri Thayer‘s quilting mysteries at the Expo! She came to my event at the Bobbin’s Nest in May and brought me a signed copy of her first one in the series, Wild Goose Chase.

I’ve bought the other two at Murder By The Book, my favorite mystery bookstore (right in my neighborhood here in SE Portland). By the way, if you are interested, they have a new Crafty Crimes section with all the knitting, sewing, needlework, and scrapbooking mysteries in one place, which I personally love. I’m going to bring some vintage craft supplies by so they can decorate the shelf, actually!

Anyway, Jean at MBTB recommended a mystery called Quilt as Desired, which is at the top of my stack of books to read next, and I met the author, Arlene Sachitano at Expo this morning! So I bought the second one in the series, Quilter’s Knot, and she signed it to me.

Ok, see you super-early Saturday morning if you’d like to make a wool baby quilt, and if you’re in Seattle please save the date for Saturday, October 22 from 1-3 pm – I’m so happy that we’ve just set up a MLCQ book event at The Quilting Loft in Ballard! More details soon…